H7N9- The Complete Series Page 7

  “Look, I just want–”

  “Hey, Henderson! Get your ass over here!” the other guard ordered.

  The guard at Teddy’s window groaned.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, keep your pants on, Brummel. It’s not like he’s going anywhere,” Henderson grumbled as he walked away to help his co-worker. “I don’t understand why those weekend soldiers they have sitting in the parking lot can’t help us do this.”

  He left Teddy’s window uncovered as he walked away.

  Brummel chuckled.

  “They’re not out there to help us bro,” Brummel said. “You and I both know that they’re out there to keep us in here to do the dirty work. We’re the goddamn prisoners now, aint that some shit?”

  “Well I heard Hester went AWOL last night during his graveyard shift. He abandoned the unit and took the keys and radio with him.”

  “I heard that too. I also heard the military arrested that fool the second he stepped out of the front lobby. What was he thinking?”

  “Nothing I didn’t think about myself.”

  “Truth be told, I considered getting the fuck out of here too, but I’m probably safer in here.”

  “Where’s your old lady?”

  “She’s safe. I called her the other night when the cell towers were on. She’s at the stadium.”

  “Healthy?”

  “Yeah. She said they’re keeping the sick ones separate from the healthy ones.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  Teddy pressed his face against the streaked glass and stared down the range towards the voices.

  Multiple doors were open and the cells were empty. Old plastic food trays and pools of stagnant water sat in the center of the range.

  He spotted the two guards, both wearing masks, pulling the corpse of the inmate from cell 23 down the middle of the range by his feet.

  The corpse had old vomit caked on the front of his jumpsuit and his skin was ghostly white. His lifeless eyes were wide-open, and his neck was discolored and swollen with black pustules. The skin on his face was pulled tight and dried blood was caked around his nose.

  “Jesus Christ…” Teddy muttered. “Hey! What happened to him?”

  He stared in shock as they pulled the corpse along the dirty range.

  “Don’t worry about it. Just sit down and chill,” Brummel said. He reached over and slammed the steel cover shut over Teddy’s window.

  “Hey!” Teddy shouted. He slammed his open palm against the door. “Tell me what the fuck is going on!”

  He heard Henderson chuckling as the guards walked away and then heard the metallic click of the security grille being closed.

  Teddy stepped away from the door and paced in small circles in his cell, thinking.

  He heard the coughing.

  He knew what killed that man.

  For the first time the gravity of what Maurice mentioned to him earlier in the chow hall started to sink in.

  A chilling horror started to grow inside his stomach as Maurice’s words replayed in his head.

  “Come on Maurice… You’re too damn old to fall for petty prison gossip. Whatever is out in New York isn’t going to come in here.”

  Maurice grinned and gestured towards the crowded dining hall.

  Multiple men were hunched over the table, coughing into the crooks of their arms and blowing their noses into their shirts.

  “Look around,” he said, “it’s already here.”

  Teddy sat down on the bunk and stared at the floor.

  He was facing an enemy he couldn’t take on with a knife or challenge in a cell.

  It was everywhere.

  Awake while he slept.

  There while he ate.

  Cunning.

  Deadly.

  Immune to the confines of a prison cell.

  It crawled over every door handle, lingered in the air, and rode in on the coattails of every guard who stepped foot behind those concrete walls.

  For the first time in a long time, Teddy was actually afraid.

  A few hours later his food trap cracked opened and another tray was flung inside.

  The tray’s lid popped open and dry cereal scattered across the floor.

  Teddy stared at the food.

  He was hungry, but he didn’t dare touch it.

  Instead, he did what he always did: he lay down and closed his eyes as he waited for the storm to pass.

  NOVEMBER 10th

  “Roll cell 16!” Henderson hoarsely shouted.

  A loud buzzer sounded as Teddy’s door rolled open along its rusty tracks.

  Teddy opened his eyes and quickly sat up on the edge of his bed. He stared at the guard standing in the doorway.

  Henderson was deathly pale and his untucked wrinkled uniform was drenched with sweat. A dirty looking N-95 mask covered his face. He carried a large fiberglass riot baton with both hands and was partially hunched over.

  “What’s going on?” Teddy asked as he stood up. It hurt to speak. He reached up and rubbed his throat; it was sore.

  “You’re going back to your housing unit,” Henderson said, coughing. “Now hurry up and step outside the cell.”

  Teddy furrowed his brows and shook his head.

  “What do you mean I’m going back? I can’t after what happened!”

  “Well, you don’t have a choice in the matter,” Henderson grumbled. “SHU is closing.”

  Teddy was taken aback.

  “Why?”

  Henderson coughed loudly and shook his head.

  “Why do you think, genius? We don’t have enough staff to man the place,” Henderson finally said after he caught his breath. “Now stop asking questions and step outside before I drag you out.”

  Henderson stepped away from the doorway and motioned for him to start walking. He slapped the baton against his open palm, waiting.

  Confused, Teddy stepped out of the cell onto the range.

  Every cell door was open and the entire range was littered with soiled blankets, food trays, and red biohazard trash bags stuffed with linen. Water was pooled on the floor and only half of the overhead fluorescent tubes were lit.

  “Walk,” Henderson ordered.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Teddy asked as he looked at the empty cells.

  “Gone. You’re the last one that I have to escort out of this stinky cesspool.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Walk!” Henderson shouted. He shoved the tip of the baton against the center of Teddy’s back.

  Teddy timidly stepped forward and tripped over a pile of spoiled food trays, but quickly regained his balance. He slowly walked down the dim range towards the open security grille at the end of the hall. He glanced over each empty cell he passed. Most of the cells were covered in feces, with their mattresses on the floor.

  A stocky black guard named Brown was leaning against the security grille at the end of the range with his keys sticking in the door control panel. His hair was oily and his eyelids were puffy and sagging. His blue uniform shirt was stained and his N-95 mask looked like it was falling apart from all of the sweat rolling down his face.

  Teddy brushed past Brown and stepped into the center of the special housing unit.

  Brown scowled and stared at him as he passed by.

  “Watch it, burley motherfucker,” Brown said. “If you get in my personal space again I’m going to stomp your ass.” He turned towards Henderson. “Is he the last one?”

  “Yeah. After I take him to his unit I’m taking a break and smoking my last cigar.”

  “I’m going to catch a few hours of sleep. I still have thirty-two more hours to do in Delta A,” Brown said as he closed the grille.

  “Delta A? Wilbur’s unit?”

  “Yeah. That motherfucker went missing last night and nobody knows where he went. Those weekend soldiers camped out front babysitting the front lobby didn’t see him leave. Lieutenant Eaton thinks he’s still hiding somewhere in the institution.”

  “He proba
bly ran out of breath on his way to the door.”

  “Or he slipped right past those soldiers holding us in here. I heard some of them are disappearing too.”

  “Trust me, his ass will show up once they ring the dinner bell,” Henderson said with a shrug. “The dining hall would be the first place I’d look.”

  Both guards laughed and then erupted into coughing fits.

  Teddy stood in the center of the unit and looked around in shock.

  All six ranges were empty and had trash piled near their open security grilles. The officer’s station, a control pod in the middle of the unit surrounded by windows, was empty and the lights were off inside.

  “Quit gawking and keep walking,” Henderson said as he prodded Teddy with the baton.

  Teddy scowled and started walking towards the sally port that led out of the special housing unit into the hallway that fed into the main corridor.

  “What about my khakis? I’d like to get out of this old jumpsuit,” Teddy said.

  Henderson let out a chain of rattling coughs and shook his head.

  “Not now. Later,” he said in a hoarse voice. “No clean khaki uniforms left. No laundry officer left. Now walk.”

  Teddy approached the sally port and waited as the control center slid open the first door.

  “Look, if you send me back to the unit I’m dead, do you realize that? It doesn’t matter what’s going on out here, the white boys have a target on my head. I’m done once I step back in general pop.”

  Teddy walked inside the sally port and nearly gagged on the stale, foul air. Bins of soiled jumpsuits and plastic bags full of trash were piled inside and covered with roaches and flies.

  Henderson followed him inside.

  The door behind them shut and the door leading into the corridor started to roll open.

  “You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Henderson assured him.

  Teddy stepped out into the hallway and started walking.

  All of the security grilles leading to the main corridor were open.

  The dim hallway was long and narrow. Its concrete walls and floor were dull from the residue of harsh chemical disinfectant. Mounds of stuffed red biohazard trash bags and heaps of garbage had been pushed against the wall along both sides and empty medical gurneys lay piled up in the middle of the walkway.

  Teddy stopped walking as he stared ahead.

  Medical’s door was chained shut and the pill line window’s metallic shutter was locked. A scribbled sign on the outside read: INMATE MORGUE.

  Stiff decomposing bodies wrapped in clear plastic were stacked like cordwood in front of medical, while countless more were unceremoniously heaped on top of gurneys and stuffed inside large grey trash bins. Some of the bodies had names and registration numbers scribbled across their decaying flesh while others did not. All of the corpses were covered with purple pustules and the lymph nodes on their necks were swollen to the size of softballs. Their leathery skin was pulled taunt against their faces -permanently freezing their expressions - they all appeared to have died gasping for their final breath. Their dead eyes bulged out of their sockets and dried blood was caked around their noses.

  The stench was nauseating.

  Teddy remained frozen in the middle of the hall.

  Henderson prodded him with the baton.

  “Go on, champ,” Henderson said. “They don’t bite. Keep walking.”

  Teddy walked down the center of the hall at a swift pace. The putrid stench filled his nostrils and made bile creep up the back of his throat. It was difficult to maneuver around the countless corpses. They had been crammed wherever there was any available space. Flies hung thick in the air and buzzed past his face as he walked.

  Wheelbarrows and shovels sat in front of the dining hall and a paper sign was taped to the dining hall’s door: STAGING AREA – PPE REQUIRED.

  Teddy peeked inside the dining hall’s windows as he passed and noticed that rows of cots and sleeping bags had taken the place of the tables. A number of cots had still bodies lying on them wrapped in blankets. Boxes of military MREs with the FEMA seal stamped on the side of them were stacked in the back along with metallic rolling tables. The massive industrial freezer behind the serving line in the kitchen had a sign taped to it that read: STAFF MORGUE. Dying flowers and small trinkets were placed in front of the freezer.

  Four men wearing army uniforms and gasmasks walked amongst the corpses with a pad of paper and a digital camera. They unzipped the bags, took a picture of the corpse’s face, and half-heartedly searched the body for some sort of identification.

  Guard or convict, it made no difference to the microbial predator.

  Nauseated and dizzy, Teddy stopped walking and hunched over with his hands on his knees just past the final security grille that led out to the main corridor.

  “Jesus Christ…” he muttered as he managed to hold back the contents of his stomach. “Just… Just how bad is this?”

  “It will pass,” Henderson said. “Things will get better.”

  Teddy turned and glared at the man, struggling to regain his composure.

  “How?! How in the hell is this going to get better?”

  Henderson frowned.

  “Not everyone dies,” Henderson said as he slapped the baton against his open palm, staring at Teddy. He coughed. “I was practically in that freezer myself, but I got better. So did many others. All I have now is a little tickle in my throat. Survival of the fittest and all that, you know? Once the dust settles everything will go back to normal. They’ll come get the bodies, you’ll go back to SHU, we’ll clean this place up, go back to normal operations, and then I’ll have one hell of a backlogged paycheck and lots of stories. Believe me, after I get my hands on that paper I’m paying off all of my bills and then some. Now walk.”

  “Judging by that cough, I wouldn’t rush to a clean bill of health so soon.”

  Henderson’s bald head reddened and his grip on the baton tightened.

  “Fuck your negativity! You’re not a goddamn doctor! Say something fucked up again and I’ll knock your teeth down your throat! Now move!”

  Teddy shook his head and stepped into the main corridor.

  The main corridor had all of the grilles open except for the one on the side that led towards the front of the institution and the control center. Wooden pallets stacked with sacks of slaked lime were lined along the wall. The door leading out to the housing units was left open and the metal detector had been pushed aside. Dirt from the recreation yard made a trail into the corridor. Far in the distance, two soldiers toting assault rifles stood at the doorway that led to the front lobby, talking. They wore full military urban combat fatigues and gasmasks.

  Teddy stared at the soldiers; this was the first time he was seeing guns inside the prison.

  The soldiers stopped talking and stared back.

  “Quit staring and walk!” Henderson shouted. “Go ahead… Keep trying my patience and watch what happens!”

  Teddy looked back ahead and walked towards the door that led outside.

  As he stepped outside, he raised his arm to shield his eyes from the blinding sunlight.

  The concrete walkways were vacant.

  The recreation yard had been dug up and turned into a mass grave. Rows of bodies covered in powdered lime filled three shallow trenches. The skeletal corpses looked rancid and picked clean by wildlife. Black crows and buzzards circled overhead. A row of six inmates chained together with leg irons were lined along one of the trenches and heaved shovelfuls of dirt onto the corpses piled inside. Four soldiers wearing gasmasks and full combat gear stood behind the inmates with their assault rifles pointed at them.

  The gun tower in the middle of the yard had its mirrored windows slid open and looked empty.

  Two soldiers holding sniper rifles stood on the roof of one of the housing units. One of the soldiers brought the rifle to his shoulder and stared at Teddy through the powerful scope.

  A cool wind rustled throug
h the compound, kicking up sand and whistling through the rec yard’s chain-link fence. The chilly breeze felt foreboding… deadly…sinister.

  As Teddy looked at the units and the darkened cell windows, he couldn’t help but wonder how many were even alive inside.

  An army helicopter passed overhead and kicked up plumes of dust and lime.

  “What unit do you live in?” Henderson asked above the whirl of the helicopter’s blades.

  Teddy hesitantly pointed towards Bravo Unit.

  “Well, start walking then. I don’t have all day.”

  Teddy sluggishly walked through the hazy, dirty air towards Bravo and passed the Alpha Unit’s open doors.

  A sweaty white guard pushed a wheelbarrow full of corpses out of Alpha, coughing and wheezing loudly.

  Teddy glanced over at the wheelbarrow as the guard passed.

  The bodies in the cart were all in various stages of decomposition and were full of maggots. Their bloated bodies were punctured from rough handling and leaked noxious acidic intestinal waste.

  As Teddy stared at one of the bodies, recognition struck him.

  Maurice’s milky eyes stared vacantly at the sky above as his mouth hung open. Worms and ants crawled out of his mouth. His decrepit body was frail and skeletal. His flesh seemed to move as maggots burrowed underneath his rotting brown skin.

  Teddy crouched down and dry-heaved repeatedly. Long strands of saliva dribbled from his mouth.

  “What’s wrong? Get up!” Henderson barked.

  “I-I know him,” Teddy said, voice shaking.

  “Who?”

  “One of the men in the wheelbarrow… His name is Maurice…” Teddy said as he pointed a trembling hand towards the wheelbarrow.

  “So? I lost people too. We all did. Get up and keep walking.”

  “I just need a minute, boss… Please.”

  The guard hauling the bodies pushed the wheelbarrow away towards the rec yard, wheezing.

  “Inmate, it wasn’t a request! I don’t care about some dead inmate and I sure as fuck don’t care about your hurt feelings!” Henderson yelled.

  Teddy angrily wiped the strands of saliva from his mouth, stood back up, and spun towards the guard with closed fists. His hands shook.